If you've been watching too many Aaron Sorkin dramas, it's possible that you're under the illusion that being an American political campaign reporter is an intoxicatingly glamorous job. If so, you should definitely read Monday's report from the Mitt Romney press pool (scroll down).

Yesterday was the first day that the Romney camp permitted "protective pool" coverage – the arrangement whereby one or more reporters get to follow the candidates even when they've scheduled no public events. The pool reporters then share their observations with their colleagues at other outlets.

"Romney arrived at Bradley's Hardware in downtown Wolfeboro, NH, at 8.45am … Romney was wearing a casual salmon, checkered, button-down shirt, his sleeves rolled up his forearm. He wore jeans and black New Balance shoes. As he walked into the store, he was carrying what appeared to be a shopping list."

Fair enough. Who doesn't need hardware stuff sometimes? And, at least, the next stage of the journey has to be marginally more interesting than that. A public appearance, perhaps, or a fundraiser, or even a closed-to-the-media meeting at which several vice-presidential candidates have been seen furtively arriving minutes earlier?

"Then, he said, 'Going to the grocery store now,' and climbed into his Suburban."

It's a ruse! There's no way Romney's really going to the grocery store. For one thing, he's in the middle of a frenzied campaign for the most powerful office on the planet. For another, he has people to do things like that for him. He must be going somewhere more exciting, but trying to mislead the media.

"At 8.57am, Romney arrived at Hunters Shop'n'Save … [H]e stopped to get two ears of native sweetcorn from an outside display. They were on sale for two for $1.00 … Romney grabbed a shopping cart and went inside the store."

Ah, OK then. Shortly after 9am, Romney emerges with a shopping cart full of groceries. Here's photographic evidence, if you don't believe me! According to the pool report, the cart contains:

A reporter asks Romney if he'll be cooking that evening. "I've got some folks coming over today," Romney replies. The reporter, still adorably optimistic about the possibility of getting an actual story, asks if the "folks" are vice-presidential possibilities Rob Portman or Tim Pawlenty. Romney replies:

"Ha, ha, ha, ha."

OK. Where next?

"At 9.11am, Romney walked across the parking lot to Rite Aid pharmacy … At 9.16am, Romney emerged from the store with a plastic bag of goods."

At this point, though, I know what you're thinking. With hindsight, in the moments before epoch-changing moments in history, the details of people's everyday lives often seem incongruously dull. At this stage in the report, it feels as though something huge is about to happen. Something that will make all these mundane details seem so poignant, so … innocent.

A world-shaking event is about to strike from nowhere, changing everything …

… BAM!

"[He] had a conversation with one lady whose car was blocked in by his motorcade."

"Romney arrived back at his residence at 9.22am … A full lid was called at 1.32pm."

Rucker was, just to be clear, doing his job exactly correctly here, and the pool reports aren't intended to be interesting: the main thing the pooler's colleagues want to hear is the reassuring news that they didn't miss anything.

But the utter, Beckettian nothingness of Romney's Monday morning draws attention to just how far his campaign has decided on a policy of engaging with reporters as little as humanly possible. (See also his foreign tour: the candidate took three questions in total from the travelling press.)

At the Columbia Journalism Review, Brendan Nyhan seems to place the blame largely on the media: by fixating on Romney's gaffes, he argues, they trigger further opacity from the campaign, then risk "letting their grievances fuel pathological coverage" by finding more gaffes, and so on, in a vicious cycle. True – but precisely because it's so circular, the blame should surely be spread more equally. When you have no real access to a candidate, gaffes – moments when the strictly controlled image-making falters – are all you've got left.